. >>> and now, we want to take youtowashingtontoupdate you onthefiscalclifftonight.25 days from now, and today, something new. president obama and speaker of the house, john boehner, decided to take charge together. they dismissed other members of their parties, saying they will hammer it out together, try to move the deal forward. >>> and also today, encouraging new jobs report. employers added 146,000 jobs last month, defying the predictions and the disruption of hurricane sandy. the unemployment rate fell to 7.7%, that's the lowest level in four years. but tonight, 12 million americans are still unemployed. and the new jobs number, the fiscal cliff, all of it will be on the table when george stephanopoulos sits down with a turbocharged powerhouse round table. james carville, mary matalin and nobel prize-winning economist paul krugman, on sunday for "this week." >>> and now, we go overseas to syria, where people are fleeing amid fears that the assad regime will unleash chemical weapons. the region around the capital, damascus, now a battle zone. 2 million syrians now on the run, m

. >>> meanwhile, backinwashington, withjust over three weeks left to make a deal onthefiscalcliff, bothsides out with new statents today. and on the surface, they still sound far apart. president obama this morning saying he's going to insist on raising taxes on the wealthiest americans no matter what. >> if we're serious about reducing our deficit while still investing in things like education and research that are important to growing our economy, and if we're serious about protecting middle-class families, then we're also going to have to ask the wealthiest americans to pay higher tax rates. that's one principle i won't compromise on. >> meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, republican senator marco rubio gave the weekly republican address today. part of his message? the tax rate should not go up on anyone including the top 2%. >> we must reform our complicated, uncertain, job-killing tax code by getting rid of unjustified loopholes. but our goal should be to generate new revenue by creating new taxpayers, not new taxes. >> joining me, author of "the escape artists: how obama's

a discussion on the so-calledfiscalcliffnegotiationsand the impact on unemployment insurance. from "washington journal" this is 40 minutes. host: we continue our look at unemployment insurance and its role in the fiscal clift debate, we are joined by michael tanner and josh bivens. mr. michael tanner, if you had your way in these discussions, where what unemployment insurance end up at the end of the day? guest: i think the emergency extension should fade away and we should go back to the 46 weeks that we have been at, the 26 weeks of traditional employment, and extended benefits in states that have higher unemployment rates. you start with the fact that unemployment insurance itself, when you extended for a long times as questionable value. we know it leads to an increase in the on and -- unemployment rate. that is dubious enough, but when you factor in that we will deficit finance this and slow economic growth overall, destroying jobs of the same time we pay people for being unemployed, a thing that creates a problem. host: how much money do we save if we do not extend emergency

thefiscalcliff, weshouldn't do $4 trillion deal. wish to a $9 trillion deal and create the confidence in the world that we're going to manage our problems and we're going to downsize our government so we have a future. because the opposite of not downsizing, not making our choices, i don't everybody gets fired from congress, the opposite of that is at the other end of future. and the loss of freedom, the loss of independence. the morning shows today talked about our lack of power and effect in the middle east. why do you think we have lost effect and power in the middle is? because we have lost our economic might and we are losing the power and effect of our military might. and we won't have the money to continue to be a force for good in the world, because we will not live within our means. so the debt bomb is coming. the question is how do we defuse it? to maintain what we need to do to help the people that really need help in this country, but i should get together and work and solve the problem rather than play the political game. we are already playing a political game about the